Where will they go when the Sea rises?

By Anna Gosline

THE average American emits five times as much carbon dioxide as a Mexican and 20 times as much as the average Indian. So the last thing the planet’s already battered environment needs is more Americans.

That is the argument of a small but vocal faction of the environmental group the Sierra Club, who last week urged the club’s 750,000 members to support a ballot calling for a cut in immigrants to the US, which now stands at around 700,000 a year. The ballot failed, but those who supported it are undeterred. “The size and rate of growth of the American population puts enormous stress on the global environment,” says Sierra Club club member Dick Schneider, from Oakland, California.

Similar arguments have been put forward elsewhere. Environmentalist Tim Flannery, who is director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, has argued that at current consumption levels Australia can only support 7 or 8 million people sustainably, not the 19 million who now live there. This presents a “moral dilemma”, he says, when it comes to receiving future immigrants who have been forced to move because of climate change, for example, Pacific islanders flooded by rising sea levels.

“If we take in these refugees, they immediately up their pollution 100-fold as Australian citizens. So we are making the problem worse,” says Flannery. He believes the only solution is for rich countries to drastically reduce their emissions.

Others argue quite differently. They say the developed world’s taste for consumption should make them more welcoming to immigrants, not less. Over the next century, millions of people living in coastal areas and small ...

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